I would assume two requests coming in at the same time would really be the first point you would consider getting a load balancer in some form or fashion.
If you have a lot of long web requests (searches, big calculations, etc.) you tie up the web request for any users. Of course, if the web request completes in a matter of milleseconds, you've made your user wait milliseconds. Probably not a big deal. Load Balancing has the connotation of requiring Big Hardware, but can be as simple as Apache's mod_proxy_balancer looking at incoming requests and deciding which mongrel instance in a mongrel_cluster to route to. I personally have 2 instances running on several low traffic sites, and you can see in the Apache built in mod_proxy_balancer manager screen that the 2nd one hardly ever kicks in. There are some most excellent docs that even tell you how to mod_deflate and have the Apache instance serve up static content (one thing that mongrel does well, but not as well as it serves up ruby) and configure a 3 mongrel_cluster setup. Coda Hale's comes to mind: http://blog.codahale.com/2006/06/19/time-for-a-grown-up-server-rails-mongrel-apache-capistrano-and-you/ Only using httperf or ab or siege or anything to simulate the kind of traffic you expect will tell you if you need a load-balancer. I wouldn't add one before at least doing that. On a side note, if you do have long running web requests, might I suggest using backgrounDRb to free up the web request. Cheers, -- Charles Brian Quinn self-promotion: www.seebq.com Highgroove Studios: www.highgroove.com Slingshot Hosting: www.slingshothosting.com On 8/1/06, Jason Young <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Jul 31, 2006, at 3:21 AM, Dave Murphy wrote: > > > > You will need a load balancer if you're not using Apache 2.2. > > Why exactly? I have relatively low traffic sites, but I'm not load- > balancing - and as far as I know (which is one of the biggest self- > lies in system administration I know) - I'm not having any delivery > problems. At what traffic point ls LB really necessary? > > Jason > -- > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Jason Young -- Systems Manager, eXtension > http://about.extension.org/wiki/Jason_Young > ______________________________________ > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Mongrel-users mailing list > [email protected] > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/mongrel-users > _______________________________________________ Mongrel-users mailing list [email protected] http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/mongrel-users
